


Our Old Friends are Now Our Enemies

by countessrivers



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Arkham Asylum, Arkham Asylum is quite possibly cursed, Bruce has questions and is justifiably mad about a great many things, Jeremiah believes that everyone is dumber and less interesting than him and Bruce, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-26 01:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20035813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/countessrivers/pseuds/countessrivers
Summary: A collection of possibly loosely connected one shots set post-finale. Including Bruce visiting Jeremiah in Arkham.





	Our Old Friends are Now Our Enemies

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone following me on tumblr, remember when I said I'd be posting this like three weeks ago? Well it happened eventually.
> 
> I have a few ideas for a few post-finale fics I'd like to write, so amongst all my other fics, this one will be updated with new stuff occasionally.

Over a decade and a half since first re-opening and Arkham Asylum was still as terrible as ever. 

Bruce knows the Foundation had continued to support the asylum while he was gone, pouring in money in an effort to improve it, even a little. The local and state governments had hardly shirked on their duties either, and every few years there had been a complete overturn of staff, presumably with the aim to weed out the corruption. But no matter what anyone did, the asylum remained the same. 

Lax security, out-of-date equipment and treatments, decaying facilities, and power and control of the hospital resting either with the most corrupt staff, or the strongest inmates. 

Bruce isn’t exactly fond of the supernatural, but he’s seen enough to know that things aren’t always as clear, or normal, as they appear, and given the Arkham family’s bloody history, and even those rumors about what happened to the mansion’s original architect, he can’t help but wonder... 

At the very least, an inmate being able to walk out whenever they pleased was dangerous, not just for the public. Arkham may have kept Edward Nygma incarcerated for almost ten years, but even he had escaped eventually, and had immediately used said freedom to try and blow up the Mayor. (Or rather, had been broken out. From what Bruce can tell, Nygma hadn’t actually done anything). 

Bruce counts it as a win that the current warden didn’t appear to be releasing inmates he_ knew _were insane, purely to see what they would do. But then again, it wasn’t hard to operate with a higher level of professional integrity than Hugo Strange. 

Because it didn’t exactly speak well to the staff’s competence that no one had noticed or cared that a patient had been faking catatonia for_ years _. 

As he’s escorted through the hallways, Bruce can’t help but think back to his mother, and the dreams she’d had of what Arkham could have been. A world class mental health institution, that would have helped Gotham’s sick and most vulnerable. That would have made the city a better place, even in just a small way. 

But the mob had gotten its dirty, blood-stained claws into it, because almost anything could be bought or threatened, and nothing was completely free of greed or corruption in Gotham. 

(At least, not yet. Bruce has only just gotten started after all.) 

And it suited him now, sure, but it was actually worrying how easy it had been for Bruce to arrange a private visitation with what was likely the asylum’s most dangerous inmate. 

Turning down the last hallway, his accompanying guard, Zachary Franklin, according to his ID badge, leads him to a solid metal door. They stop in front of it and Franklin pulls out his security key. 

“He should already be in there,” he says, looking at Bruce. “Chained down and everything, so you won’t need to worry about that.” Franklin moves to unlock the door, but pauses, and turns to look at Bruce again. "Cameras are all off. Said you wanted privacy, yeah?” 

The guard raises an eyebrow, and Bruce can unfortunately imagine just what the man thinks is going to happen when Bruce enters the room. He’s not _quite _voyeuristically interested, but he’s clearly supportive enough, and obviously has no qualms about the idea of Bruce Wayne buying his way into an unsupervised room with an inmate. 

It’s another gift horse Bruce really shouldn’t be looking in the mouth, but it’s one that worries him all the same. The clear lack of concern for the well-being of both patients and visitors is disturbing. 

Although it’s not like Bruce entirely trusts that the cameras will be completely off either. There’s a chance they are – the guards and administrators are unlikely to want there to be any record of whatever it is they think Bruce is going to do, or of the fact he was here in the first place. On the other hand, they may want the recordings for exactly that reason. Blackmail is practically Gotham’s second official currency after all. 

Bruce is prepared anyway. 

“Thank you, Officer Franklin,” he says, making sure to keep his face determinedly blank, even as he slips his hand into his pocket to brush his thumb across the on-switch of the interference device he’d gotten from Lucius a few weeks prior. “Your discretion, and that of your colleges is much appreciated.” 

“Right, well. Twenty minutes,” the guard says as he opens the door. “But knock if you need anything before then, or if you want out.” 

Bruce nods, slipping through the door and turning to watch as it’s closed, and locked, behind him. 

“When they said I had a visitor, I thought they might have been trying to be clever.” 

Hearing Jeremiah’s voice in his head, his dreams and his nightmares, hearing it from across a chemical processing warehouse while concealed in the rafters is a very different thing to hearing it in person. 

Bruce has to force himself to keep breathing. 

“But I hadn’t even...I hadn’t dared hope.” 

Bruce turns to see Jeremiah, seated at the metal table in the centre of the room. As the guard had said, he’s chained to the table, thick, padded cuffs wrapped around his wrists, attached to a metal chain that tethers him in place. He’s gripping the edge of the table, a bandage wrapped around one hand, and he’s staring at Bruce with wide eyes. 

Bruce straightens his shoulders and walks towards the table, but pauses when Jeremiah starts frowning. 

“Unless you’re a hallucination,” he says. “Which I’ll take, but they never are as fulfilling as the real thing.” Jeremiah sighs. “And oh, it’s been so long since I’ve had the real thing. My imagination’s good but...” 

“I’m real,” Bruce cuts in. “I’m here.” 

Jeremiah’s face breaks immediately into a smile, and he watches as Bruce crosses the rest of the distance and sits down. 

“A hallucination probably would say that, but I’ll take you at your word.” He leans forward, the chain hanging from his wrists clanking loudly against the table. “It’s good to see you Bruce. It’s been far too long. Well, actually, not that long. But we didn’t really have a chance to talk last time, given that...” 

Jeremiah trails off, and Bruce sees his eyes stray to the security camera hanging from the corner of the room. 

“They won’t be working,” Bruce says. “It’s just us.” 

Jeremiah smiles again, looking pleased at the statement. 

“As it should be,” he says. 

Hearing Jeremiah speak jerks at something in Bruce. The way his voice flits between tones and pitches and even accents. Bruce had forgotten, even as he hadn’t. Certain conversations, certain statements, the way Jeremiah said his name, all that had been burned into his memory, replayed at one point or another during the intervening years. But the rest had fallen back with everything else Bruce had left behind. Not forgotten, just...not centre. Tucked aside. 

Listening to him pulls it all back out. His voice is rougher, with age maybe, damage, even disuse, but it’s still him. Bruce would know his voice, his laugh, anywhere. So different from his brother’s, for all that they were similar. 

“Is there something you’d like me to call you?” Bruce asks, realising he’d been silent long enough for Jeremiah to start looking at him quizzically, rather than just plain looking at him. 

Jeremiah makes a humming noise. 

“Well there’s a number of things I’d_ like _you to call me, but specifically...?” 

“Your name. Jim said you weren’t going by Jeremiah anymore, though you wouldn’t tell him what to use instead. Do you want me to call you something in particular? 

“Again, I can think of a number of-” 

Bruce clears his throat, cutting him off, in no mood to deal with thinly veiled innuendos. Jeremiah just answers his frown with a smile. 

“But if it’s names we’re talking about, I’ll let you know when I find it.” 

“What do you mean?” Bruce asks, a little thrown. 

“I just...” Jeremiah tilts his head back to look up at the ceiling. “I just feel like something else. Something that isn’t the old me. Or the old-old me, even. Something all brand new.” He looks back at Bruce, smiling in an unsettling genuine way as he leans in. “But you can still call me that though. If you like. It can be ours, something just between the two of us. I find I rather like hearing my name on your tongue. Missed it.” 

Bruce isn’t sure what to say to that, but there’s a small part of him that clings to the name, relieved that it’s not gone too. Jeremiah is not who he was, and the past is the past, buried under time and rubble and a mountain of dead, but all the same, Bruce, selfishly, madly, hadn’t wanted to lose Jeremiah’s name, one of the last links to who he had been, who they had both been. A link to the life and the world he’d left in order to save. 

And it should, it would be easier if Jeremiah left his name behind. Finally cut that last string. It’s wrong for Bruce to take comfort in Jeremiah keeping his name. It really shouldn’t matter to Bruce at all what Jeremiah calls himself, and it wars with his anger, his horror at what Jeremiah has done, but the comfort is present all the same, slipping inside him and taking root. 

“Jeremiah, then.” 

Jeremiah will remain Jeremiah and Bruce will remain Bruce, even if it’s just to each other. Even if, one day, they both take another name. 

“It really is good to see you, Bruce. I’ve missed you.” 

The look on his face is earnest, like he truly means it. And maybe he does. Bruce doesn’t really doubt that Jeremiah missed him, in his own way, but it’s not the kind of attention, or affection Bruce wants. 

(Should want) 

Still, Bruce takes the opportunity to study the man across from him. Looking closely, past the scaring, Bruce is surprised to see that Jeremiah’s eyes are as they used to be, no longer an eerie, washed out grey, and his skin is a normal, if still damaged, pink, not the bleached white it had been prior to his fall. He’d seen as much in photos, but seeing it in person, Bruce’s minds races away from him, and it’s somewhat horrifying to think of Jeremiah’s current appearance being the result of the chemicals literally burning away the cosmetic effects of Jerome’s toxin. Enough of the white skin corroded, eaten away by the vibrant green acid, Jeremiah’s body then regenerating anew, as best it could, without the gas’ stain. 

In those early days, immediately after Ace Chemicals, and in the months that stretched out after, Bruce hadn’t given much thought to Jeremiah’s appearance. He had been, for the most part, swaddled in bandages, and while on occasion Bruce had seen him uncovered, he’d assumed the raw, red skin was temporary, Jeremiah’s body agitated and inflamed as it healed. 

But obviously not, as the white seems to be gone for good. 

It makes him wonder why Jeremiah put the make-up on after leaving Arkham. He hadn’t applied it in the way he used to, but Bruce wonders, if perhaps he missed how he used to look. Or maybe he was simply trying to hide something, looking for his own mask. 

“You look good, Bruce,” Jeremiah says, suddenly. Apparently, as Bruce had studied Jeremiah, Jeremiah had been studying him. 

Bruce has the urge to snap back with a “you don’t”. And it would be true. Gone is the handsome young man Bruce had met in a concrete bunker all those years ago. Gone is the pale corruption that had revealed itself beside Jerome’s grave. In their place sits a scarred, damaged _mad-man. _

But he hesitates over the words. Not only because it would be petty, but because sitting across from him, the overwhelming feeling Bruce gets from Jeremiah right now is_ life _ . Jeremiah is alive, present in a way he hadn’t really been on the catwalk at Ace Chemicals, holding young Barbara hostage and staring down Jim and shooting at _him. _ And certainly more-so than the last time Bruce had seen him, still unconscious, still half-covered in bandages as he was moved to the re-opened asylum. He looks, and Bruce isn’t quite sure why his mind sticks on this word out of all others, _better _. And not just because he’s speaking and walking around. 

Bruce had done his research before coming, after all. He’d seen the medical photos, he’d seen the most recent arrest reports (given to him by a frowning, yet knowing Jim), he’s spent ten years _r__emembering _ . He knows what state Jeremiah’s been in, even if certain symptoms had been faked for a portion of the time, and he can’t entirely explain how, but he would swear that Jeremiah indeed looks _better _. 

There’s a light in his eyes, a brightness to his face. His skin almost seems less broken, less marred that it had been in some of the later photos. There’s no visible sign that he’d been recently hit in the head at all, even if said hit had been enough to knock him down, and it might be his imagination, it might be a trick of the light, but Bruce could even swear that he can see patches of red regrowth, amongst the longer wisps hanging from his mostly bare scalp. 

Bruce has always suspected that Jerome’s gas had had another, possibly unintended, effect on Jeremiah. Some sort of heightened healing ability, if he’d had to guess. Nothing too significant, but enough that bruises and injuries always seemed to fade quicker than normal. Enough that, with time, and Bruce assumes assistance from Ecco, he’d been able to all but walk off nine stab wounds to the torso. Enough that that he’d lived long enough for Bruce shake off his rage and fear induced fog and rush down to empty the chemical vat. Enough that he’d recovered from that_ at all _. 

Bruce is more than fairly certain he’s right, which might possibly explain how Jeremiah, to his eyes, appears to be once again improving. Although why, now, after ten years, when his recovery had effectively plateaued after about five, Bruce doesn’t know. 

But Bruce is not here just to see Jeremiah. He has questions. Questions he would like answers to. 

“How long have you been pretending, Jeremiah?” he asks. “How much of it was a lie?” 

Jeremiah actually takes a moment, as if intending to properly answer the question, rather than just brush it off. Bruce waits, as the silence stretches on. 

“You know, I honestly couldn’t tell you,” Jeremiah eventually replies. “For so long, for who knows how long, all there was was fire, and burning and blackness. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t feel anything except the burning and the sting and the pain.” 

Bruce swallows the lump that’s suddenly formed in his throat. 

“You were conscious? Aware?” 

“I wouldn’t really call it awareness. I just...” Jeremiah makes a vague gesture with his hand. “_Was. _ I existed in the darkness and that was it. Eventually though, the pain stopped, and I started hearing things. Sounds, voices, though it took a while for them to start registering over the nothingness. It took time, I don’t know how much, but time plenty, for me to pull myself out.” 

He frowns suddenly. 

“But when I finally did,” he continues, narrowing his eyes at Bruce. “When I finally surfaced, when I could breathe and move and open my eyes and the entire world wasn’t white hot agony, you were gone.” 

Bruce’s breath catches. 

“I woke up and You. Were. GONE!” 

Jeremiah slams his hands down on the table, the sudden flash of anger twisting his face into something awful. Bruce tenses, ready to jump from the table should Jeremiah lunge at him, ready to subdue him until the guards could get in. 

This was a mistake, he thinks. He shouldn’t have come. He didn’t know what he had been expecting. 

But just as abruptly, Jeremiah’s face morphs into something mournful. 

“Why did you leave, Bruce?” he says, his voice low, softer for the comparison to the rage before. “How could you? How could you leave us?” 

Bruce is certain he really means ‘me’. 

He’d never given Jim or Selina a decent explanation as to why he left. Even Alfred hadn’t gotten a proper answer to the question ‘why?’. They all knew, even if they didn’t want to understand, but Bruce had never actually said it out loud. 

He’s not sure he wants to explain it to Jeremiah either. He’s not sure if he could. He’s not sure why he would. 

“I had to,” is all he says. 

“Hmm.” 

Bruce wonders, if Jeremiah had tried something, if he had done something, would Bruce have come back? If Jeremiah had tried to lure him back, if he had just lashed out against the city in Bruce’s absence, would Bruce have come home earlier? 

He’ll never know, but he’s still not entirely sure what the answer would have been. 

Anyone else, no. But Jeremiah... 

“I couldn’t stay,” Bruce finds himself not quite blurting out. Jeremiah looks at him, head tilted to the side and Bruce is thrown back over a decade to meetings and brainstorming sessions where Jeremiah would look at him just like that. “I couldn’t stay. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t what Gotham needed then, and I couldn’t come back until I was.” 

Something Bruce isn’t quite able to parse flashes across Jeremiah's face, but before he can even try to get a handle on it, Jeremiah is smiling again. 

“But you are now?” Jeremiah phrases it like a question, but it’s not really. Not as much as it should be. “But you did come back, and that’s the important thing.” Jeremiah’s voice drops to a whisper. “And I knew, Bruce. I knew long before the papers started talking about the prodigal son returning, the lost, wandering prince finally coming home to take up his crown and his seat. I knew. I knew the moment you set foot back in Gotham, Bruce. I could feel it. In my bones, in my blood. I could feel you coming home.” 

Jeremiah’s hands dart out, fast in spite of the chains supposedly weighing him down. He grabs Bruce’s hands with his own, and Bruce finds himself not immediately pulling away. 

Jeremiah laughs, and the sounds sends a chill down his spine. 

“But I had no idea,” Jeremiah says breathlessly. “I had no idea.” 

He laughs again, but it’s softer this time. He pulls Bruce’s hands closer, squeezing them near painfully, and leans in so that their faces are inches apart. 

“You incredible, utterly magnificent thing you.” He smiles, an almost manic light in his eyes. “Is this what Ra’s saw? Is this what he meant?” 

“I’m not sure what you’re-” 

“No, no, don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t pretend, not with me. We don’t have to pretend.” Jeremiah leans in even further, close enough that Bruce can feel his breath on his face. “You said it was just us here, we don’t have to hide, Bruce. We can talk about it. Everything Ra’s told me, everything he said. Is this what he saw for you? For _us _ ?” He laughs and it’s not a crazed or frenzied or even menacing sound. He sounds _happy _ . “We’re going to be _beautiful _, Bruce, I just know it. And that was a cape you were wearing, right? God, I didn’t believe it was possible for me to love you more.” 

It takes everything Bruce has not to jerk his hands out of Jeremiah’s grip. Not to stand and flee the room and flee the building and flee the island. Because he knows. He’s known for a long time, though Jeremiah has never actually said that word to him, not to his face. But it doesn’t change the fact that he knows, and hearing Jeremiah just throw it out there is like a lead weight in his stomach. 

But Bruce stays, he remains seated in his chair, he allows Jeremiah to keep hold of his hands. He brushes past his words altogether, brushes past the curiosity as to what it was Ra’s al Ghul had told Jeremiah all those years ago, because if he doesn’t, then Bruce would have to stop and think about what it is that’s wrong with him, what it is about himself that invites such a horrific kind of love, and a visiting room in the middle of Arkham Aslyum was not the place to do so. 

(He’ll wait until he’s home) 

“I want to talk about you, Jeremiah,” Bruce says, forcing steadiness into his tone. “Not me.” 

Jeremiah hums vaguely, eyes repeatedly darting from Bruce’s own down to his mouth and back. 

“You said you woke up at some point,” Bruce presses on. “It took time to properly wake, to regain movement and such, but you did. Why then did you pretend? Why go on, why spend years feigning catatonia?” 

“Hmm.” Jeremiah regards him properly, eyes fixed to his face. “I mean, part of it was really just so I wouldn’t have to talk to people. They didn’t exactly leave me alone, but they didn’t expect me to answer them or interact with them or acknowledge them at all, really.” 

Jeremiah finally pulls back, but he keeps hold of Bruce hands, twisting them so that their fingers are intertwined. 

Bruce allows it. 

“People, for the most part, Bruce, are rather boring, if not outright aggravating. I don’t know how you stand dealing with them. God knows I’ve never really had the patience for it.” Jeremiah sighs. “Mostly though, what would have been the point?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean, what was the point of being awake or doing anything or killing anyone if you weren’t there?” 

It takes Bruce a long moment to understand. 

It’s deranged, it’s mad, it’s... not as surprising to Bruce as it should be, but still, it’s_ insane _. Who would do that? Who would let themselves waste away, simply because- 

And then Bruce is struck by an awful thought, the lead weight in his stomach dropping right out from under him. 

What if he hadn’t come back? 

What if he had stayed away? What if he had returned, but only to settle somewhere else? Like New York, or across the bay in Metropolis? 

Actually, no, not Metropolis. 

But anywhere else. 

Would that have made Gotham safer? Would Jeremiah have remained content in Arkham, possibly for the rest of his life, without Bruce there? Gotham had more than its fair share of threats, many that had nothing whatsoever to do with Bruce. 

(Oswald Cobblepot for instance, who after having served his time and been released, legally, had immediately kidnapped and tried to murder the Commissioner of the GCPD) 

But Jeremiah was something else. Jeremiah was different. 

Is it Bruce’s fault? 

“I did leave your feral little kitty cat alone, if you cared to notice.” 

Bruce doesn’t quite startle, but he can’t entirely control his flinch, and instinctively scowls at the insult, though Jeremiah just smiles genially back at him. 

“Selina?” Bruce asks suspiciously, finally pulling his hands back. He can feel something simmering, twitching under his skin. A heat in his blood, his bones, that’s been familiar for as long as he can remember. That he’s felt strongest these past few months each time he’s slipped on the cowl and gone out. Each time he’s come across a mugging, across a gang running drugs or guns, across someone being victimised, abandoned by those who should be helping them. 

Bruce had felt it back then too, but he’d been too young. He hadn’t had the skills, the resources, the experience he has now. Everything Bruce has can now be brought to bear on the very worst of Gotham. He can fight back, make a difference, build something better. No more standing there, angry, furious, disappointed, the fire burning through him with nowhere to go while he stares down those who build their own power on a foundation of Gotham’s most weak and vulnerable. 

Jeremiah had always been skilled at bringing it out too, stoking that fire, and Bruce quietly resents him for seemingly doing it so easily. For getting under Bruce’s skin, for knowing him, for hurting him, so deeply that Bruce is unable to simply shake it, him, off. 

(Foolish of Bruce to think that time and distance might have-) 

Selina’s fine. Possibly still mad at him, but fine. Or at least, she was fine, last time Bruce checked, but he doesn’t know where she is or what she’s doing_ every _ second of the day, and if Jeremiah is bringing her up... 

“Mmhmm.” Jeremiah looks down at where Bruce’s hands have retreated. “Not that I didn’t consider it,” he continues. “Think about it. Dream about it. A lot actually. And it’s not like she was hiding. Ecco even offered, more than once, to take care of it herself.” He looks up, staring somewhere past Bruce’s shoulder. “But in the end... it just- it just wasn’t worth it. I mean, what would have been the point? She didn’t have you either.” 

There’s a familiar fear tugging at Bruce’s chest, the twisting under his skin starting to burn. Fear of Selina getting hurt, of Selina and Jeremiah being within maiming distance of each other while all Bruce can do is stand on the sidelines and watch, but it’s tainted by something. Something stemming from the knowledge that Selina was spared because Bruce wasn’t there. Because neither of them had won in Jeremiah’s eyes. Because Bruce had left. 

(Them both) 

And the fear quickly gives way to anger, his blood catching light, though not entirely on Selina’s behalf. Because the mention of Ecco reminds Bruce of how she died (and that in and of itself flames the anger. He hadn’t known Ecco that well, they were never friends, and she’d honestly set him on edge long before he’d discovered what Jeremiah had become. But whatever she’d done, whatever she was, she hadn’t deserved to die like that. Tossed aside, disposed of because Jeremiah had gotten bored. Because she’d outlived her usefulness.) It reminds him of_ where _ she died. 

“_Sparing _ Selina, whatever your reasons for doing so, doesn’t actually mean anything. You tried to kill a child, Jeremiah,” he says, struggling to keep his voice steady. He’s thinking back to the plant, to a terrified girl, still in her pyjamas, throwing herself into her father’s arms. 

“What now?” Jeremiah’s eyes snap back to him, and if Bruce very much didn’t know better, he’d say Jeremiah looked genuinely confused. 

“Barbara Gordon. She’s ten years old, and you shot her mother in front of her. You kidnapped her and you strung her up over a vat of acid and _you tried to kill her. _” 

Bruce finds himself leaning forward, practically hissing in Jeremiah’s face. Jeremiah doesn’t flinch back, and instead makes a show of thinking; brow overly furrowed, seemingly unperturbed by Bruce’s anger. 

All it does is make Bruce angrier. There’s a roaring in his ears that’s steadily rising, and he tries to push it back, push it down. Bruce clenches his hands, nails digging into his palms in an effort to stop himself from reaching across the table and punching Jeremiah in the face. 

Jeremiah snaps his fingers. 

“Oh, right, of course,” he says. “But it's not like I shot_ her. _ And she might not have even died anyway. I mean, if she was, I don’t know, sturdy enough, if Gordon hasn’t gotten too slow in his old age, she might have been, well not _fine _, but not, you know, dead.” He gestures to himself. “I mean, look at me. I’ve never felt-“ 

Before he can finish, Bruce is up and taking hold of the front of Jeremiah’s uniform, pulling him out of his seat and half way across the table. Jeremiah laughs, and there’s a part of Bruce that’s screaming at him to wrap his hands around Jeremiah’s neck instead, choke out the sound. 

Jeremiah brings a hand up, the bandaged hand, the hand Bruce’s shuriken had sliced right through, and lays it over his. 

“You might have missed it, love, but I’ve killed a lot of people.” 

Bruce knows that. God, does he know that. 

But not like this. Not a child. 

Jeremiah’s overly casual disregard for casualties is something Bruce is well aware of, and there’s a part of him that thinks that it isn’t even that Jeremiah hated them or was particularly malicious. It’s that he didn’t, _doesn’t _, care. 

Before the bombs, before No Man’s Land, he’d given the city time to evacuate. _B__ecause _he hadn’t cared, because the people of Gotham hadn’t mattered, and so Jeremiah wasn’t going to go out of his way to hurt them. He’d just wanted them gone. Even later, with the chemicals and the fireworks, it hadn’t been about punishing or threatening Gotham or holding it to ransom. All he’d wanted was to isolate it. 

There’s amusement sometimes, satisfaction in the control of others, in making them dance to his tune. People were useful to him, helpful, loyal, until they weren’t, until they were a liability, and so, discarded accordingly. Only in the most extreme cases is Jeremiah’s rage so pointed. 

And Bruce doesn’t understand. 

“She’s a cute kid though,” Jeremiah says. “Some fire in her. I’ve never been particularly fond of children, I can admit I’m not the most paternal of people, but I think I like her. More than her parents at least.” 

“Just tell me why,” Bruce grits out, tightening his grip on Jeremiah’s shirt. “Why Jim? Why target him? Why… go after his daughter? You’ve never cared that much about him. You’ve only ever wanted him out of the way.” 

“He let you leave.” Jeremiah runs his fingers over Bruce’s knuckles where they’re gripping hard enough to turn them white, and he says it so blandly, so matter-of-factly, like it’s at all an answer that makes sense, that it leaves Bruce something close to stunned. 

“What?” 

“He let you leave. He should have made you stay, but he didn’t.” He shrugs as well as he can, only half on his feet and stretched awkwardly over the table. “So, he had to be made to understand.” 

“Why?” is all Bruce can choke out. 

“I thought I’d made it clear why I do most of the things I do.” 

“No,” Bruce says, shaking his head, swallowing down the horrified anger that was trying to claw its way up his throat. Into his hands, still inches from Jeremiah’s neck. “You don’t get to put this on me. This is you, this is all you. What you choose to do is not my fault.” 

“Well, you say that…” 

“_No. _” 

Bruce all but throws Jeremiah back into his chair, remains standing as Jeremiah collapses back and looks up at Bruce with something Bruce won’t let himself give name to. 

“Tell you what,” Jeremiah makes a show of straightening himself, manacles clanking, all the while still looking at Bruce. “If it upsets you so much, I won’t lay another hand on Miss Gordon. Promise.” 

Bruce steps back from the table. He tells himself it’s not a retreat, he’s not giving ground. He just needs a chance to refocus, re-centre. He just needs to not be within reaching distance of Jeremiah. 

(As if that itself wasn’t an admission of defeat. A loss of control. 

Bruce should be better than that.) 

“You say that you wanted to hurt Jim because he let me leave,” Bruce says, bracing his hands on the back of his chair. “You say that you do what you do _for _me. But what were the bombs, then? You tried to have me killed, Jeremiah.” 

Jeremiah has the audacity, in Bruce’s opinion, to look offended. 

“I would never. When?” 

“Less than a week ago.” 

“No.” Jeremiah shakes his head. “I will admit to being a little bit, the _teeniest _ bit mad at you for leaving, but no, honestly Bruce, I wasn’t trying to kill you. I wouldn’t.” 

Bruce can’t hold back a scoff. 

“You had the room where I was supposed to give a dedication speech rigged with explosives. That sounds to me like an attempt at murder” 

“It wasn’t really. I had every bit of faith that you’d be able to disarm them.” 

“That in no way makes it better. And what about Edward Nygma? You broke him out, armed him with explosives, and all but pointed him in my direction. He was there to kill me.” 

Jeremiah sighs, as if Bruce was being difficult, unreasonable. He’d sounded similar, that time, all those years ago, when he’d called Bruce from Alfred’s phone, chastising him for not being _grateful _. 

“I don’t know why you’re so worked up,” Jeremiah says, as Bruce’s hands clench around the top of the chair. “Nygma’s an idiot, there wasn’t any real risk. Not for you at least. Besides, you weren’t even there.” 

It actually almost is funny. Not even touching on the lives other than Bruce’s that had been under threat, but the way Jeremiah isn’t even entertaining the possibility that he could have put Bruce’s life in any real danger. That if Bruce had been hurt, _killed _, it would have been his fault. And Jeremiah claims not to want that- 

(or at least, he doesn’t want Bruce dead. Hurting him is another matter entirely. 

Always has been.) 

So yes, funny. In a way that makes Bruce want to bite down on his own tongue hard enough that he fills his mouth with blood. 

“You had no reason to believe I wouldn’t be there,” he says, instead of doing just that. “You didn’t_ know. _And why Nygma? Of all the people you could have released.” 

Jeremiah drums his fingers on the table. 

“I needed a distraction, someone who’d make a show of it, but who could be easily directed. Nygma fit the bill.” Jeremiah shrugs. “Plus, with Cobblepot being released at the same time, it seemed fortuitous, and guaranteed to keep Gordon busy. Also, I had somewhat hoped that Nygma might have ended up with a bullet between the eyes, or at least, one somewhere particularly _painful _.” He sighs again, though this one feels far more feigned. “Unfortunately. that didn’t happen. I assume incompetence continues to flourish within the GCPD.” 

“I’d hardly call not executing a suspect, even one who has been caught in the act, incompetence-” 

“You bleeding heart.” 

“But disregarding that,” Bruce continues over him. “Why would you want Nygma dead?” 

“Oh, believe me Bruce, he has it coming.” Jeremiah’s face clouds over, his words trailing off into something low, and dark. 

Bruce narrows his eyes, straightening up. As far as he was aware, Jeremiah and Edward Nygma had never directly interacted. But of course, they had been in Arkham together for ten years, and knowing Jeremiah’s condition, partially feigned or otherwise, knowing the kind of man Nygma was, the kinds of people the staff and the other inmates were, and knowing that there had been a few too many serious accidents over the last five years within the asylum’s general population for them to really be brushed aside as accidents or innocent mistakes, Bruce could make an educated guess. 

Bruce has a meeting with the Foundation in a week. It’s supposed to be a mere formality, an official induction of him as a member of the Foundation board, but Bruce decides in that moment that he’s going to bring up Arkham. People have been trying for years. Jim’s tried, City Hall’s tried, the State’s tried, and nothing’s changed. But they’re not Bruce. They don’t have what Bruce has. They don’t have his mother’s speech on Arkham’s potential practically memorised. Surely between the Foundation and Wayne Enterprises itself, _something _ can be done? Gotham only has Arkham and Blackgate. There are no other options. 

Maybe it will be easier this time, with the Falcone and Maroni mobs long gone. 

“And he would not shut up,” Jeremiah continues, tone switching rapidly back to something lighter, though Bruce could still hear the displeasure beneath it. “Non-stop talking and complaining and_ the goddamn riddles _. I swear, one day I’m going to make him choke on them. Talked about you far too much as well.” 

“Me?” Bruce had not expected that. Before he’d left he’d had very little to do with Nygma personally. The incident at Indian Hill and then the barricades against Bane’s men. Besides that, Bruce only knew of the things he’d done. To Jim, to Lucius, to Harvey, to Lee, and all the other officers and civilians he’d hurt. He’s quite happy having very little to do with Nygma, so he’s not entirely sure why the man would be talking about him at all. 

“I honestly think you should be commending me on my self-control for not bashing his brains out years ago.” 

Bruce is, despite himself, a little impressed. Not about the repression of homicidal urges, which, while Jeremiah does actually have a decent handle on his anger in general, he has still literally killed a lot of people - not outright murdering Nygma (yet, because Bruce knows how this will play out if Jeremiah’s allowed to have his way) means little. Bruce is, rather, impressed by Jeremiah’s control in general. The determination, the dedication, the _r__estraint _ required to maintain the charade for so long without giving the game away. To keep the entirety of the asylum in the dark, even as he properly recovered and planned and manipulated, takes skill and commitment and discipline that Bruce cannot help but be impressed by. 

(It’s a waste. A tragedy that still breaks Bruce’s heart.) 

Bruce means to ask more about Nygma, about what he did while in Arkham, but he’s interrupted by a pounding on the door. 

It can’t possibly have been- 

Bruce checks his watch, and yes, it has been twenty minutes 

Jeremiah glares at the door as the guard outside knocks again. 

“We’re always getting interrupted, aren’t we? Couldn’t bribe them for a bit longer?” 

Bruce closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in, straightening his jacket and brushing dust off the sleeves. He needs to look immaculate when he walks out of the room. 

“Goodbye, Jeremiah.” 

Bruce wants to add something to that, but he has no clue what he wants it to be. He can admit to himself that he would have liked more time too, that twenty minutes went by far too quickly, even if it had been hard to get even that, as open as the guards had been to bribery in the first place. 

(But even to himself he’ll admit to only wanting more time to ask questions. To try and understand. Anything else, any other reason than that would be nothing but wishful thinking on the part of someone else.) 

Bruce takes a moment to just look at Jeremiah. He doesn’t let himself think or analyse or even really inspect. He just looks, before turning his back and walking to the door. 

“Do come back soon, won’t you Bruce?” Jeremiah says from behind him. “It gets so boring and lonely in here. Please don’t make me wait ten years to see you again. I don’t know if I could handle that. I might have to come looking for you this time.” 

Bruce stops and turns back around, his immediate response of ‘No, please don’t do that’ catching on his tongue. 

“What does that mean?” he asks instead. “Are you saying that if I visit, you’d stay here? You wouldn’t break out again?” 

Bruce hears the door unlock and open behind him, Franklin apparently suddenly too impatient or nervous to wait for Bruce to signal he’s ready to go. 

“Right,” the man says gruffly. “Time to go, Wayne.” 

“Maybe.” Jeremiah shrugs, speaking over the guard. He then winks and waves as the man ushers Bruce out. “You’ll have to try it and see.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Bruce is now considering the cost-benefit of regular Asylum visits with Jeremiah if it keeps him there. It won't but Bruce will still probably try.
> 
> Was the stuff about baby Babs and Bruce being angry about Jeremiah trying to kill a child just me getting emotional about The Killing Joke and the fact that at some point Jeremiah is probably going to murder Bruce's son? Maybe so.gif.
> 
> Was this fic in general also me trying to work out what the heck Jeremiah's plan/motivation was in the finale other than he's craaaaazzzzy!!!!!!? 
> 
> (I think I managed to do so, though)
> 
> It was also fun to remember while writing this that Bruce is actually Batman now. And also presumably 6ft+ with muscle and broad shoulders and thighs that could kill a man, who is capable of properly throwing Jeremiah around the room, should he wish to.
> 
> My [tumblr](http://countessrivers.tumblr.com/) is over here.


End file.
